IBM appoints new local MD

IBM has announced a replacement for former Australia and New Zealand managing director Andrew Stevens, who retired in 2014. Stevens had been IBM's A/NZ MD since January 2011.

Jeffrey Rhoda had been acting general manager since Stevens left the role in August.

IBM revealed today that Kerry Purcell, formerly managing partner of IBM Global Business Services in Japan, will step into the local managing director role.

"I feel very privileged and excited to be appointed the IBM lead for Australia and New Zealand," the New Zealand-born MD said in a statement.

"It's clear that both Australia and New Zealand are undergoing rapid change as the forces of cloud, mobile, social and analytics transform industries.

“Locally we are executing a strong strategy that will meet this pace of change for our clients, and deliver the higher value solutions and services they need to grow and adapt their businesses. IBM continues to make significant investments locally that better enable our clients to take advantage of these market shifts."

Kerry has previously held roles at the Asia Pacific operation of UK business process outsourcing company Xchanging, Electronic Data Systems (now HP Enterprise Services), Telstra and Telecom New Zealand.

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